But I have no patience for fluff words and metaphysical mumbo jumbo.
What you really need to know in daily life is the answer to the simple question - who is more nuts?
It is immediately useful to have this information at your disposal as it is likely you will need to know who are the absolute nutjobs in order to avoid them in your day to day lives.
The rating categories are as follows:
Ori - How ritualistic the organization was. Any fire and brimstone discussion also leads us to think Ori.
Halo - How much they liked to sing about stuff. Extra points for "ooooo ooooooooooooo ohhhhhh aaaaahhhh" type choirs.
Battlestar - How new age the shop is. Catering to a personal version of God scores major points in this area.
The Results
| Church |
 Ori "The Ori are all-seeing..." |
 Halo "ooooo,oooo oooo" |
 Battlestar "If you would give yourself over to God's will, you'd find peace in his love like I have." |
| Seventh Day Adventist | RUNNER UP Lots of ranting about taxmen and sinners | #4 Some rocking out with a laptop and coloured microphones | #4 Member of audience lead prayer, including story of his experiences |
| The Anglican Church | #3 Same thing every Sunday, members stated they enjoy ritual | RUNNER UP Choir and everything. | #4 Lots of hierarchy, not much personal appeal. |
| The Lutheran Church | #6 Some sort of formalized structure | #5 Some signing, no electronics or choir | #4 Priest: "If you're gay, that's OK!" |
| The Presbyterian Church | #4 The priest talked about his interview process. | #3 Choir not as badass as the Anglicans. | #4 Some funny stories about African missions |
| The United Church | #7 Had really no idea who was running the show | WINNER Opera Singers. Hugely over the top. | WINNER Emily Carr and intricate powerpoint presentation. |
| The Quakers | #8 "Elders" present, but did not lead discussion in any apparant way | #8 No singing. No talking. No touching! | RUNNER UP Massively unorthodox. No directed service. Believe what you want to believe. |
| The Christadelphians | #5 Women had veils on their heads. Definitely reading the Bible here. | #5 Singing not a large part | #4 Good food and interesting lunch discussions |
| Christian Science | WINNER Jesus can cure your headache! | #5 Speaker had odd voice. | #3 God has some nutty plan for you, don't talk to doctors! |
From this table it can be seen that it is hard to define who wins the award for the craziest ideas.
Generally, it can be said that churches are institutions that rely on their social groups more than doctrines.
If you ask the average Joe what the difference is between his denomination of Christianity and others, more often than not the response is a lot of generalizing guesses. The Protestants have a canned list of criticisms of the Catholic church, and vice versa. Both groups regard those that would define the sabbath differently, like the Seventh Day Adventists, as cult-like fringe groups. Regarding the Quakers, well, they make oatmeal, don't they?
One could conclude that a great number of churchgoers haven't spent much time analyzing the differences in interpretations of the Bible. Sure, it's impractical to interrogate every Christian group for what their interpretations are, but it is completely within their capacity to have read the book and formed some of their own ideas for at least a superficial understanding of what the schisms have formed around.
Some Christians may say "we're all one big happy family, let's not pay attention to our differences" but this is rather naive. One particular brand of Christianity may have more in common with Buddhism, Judaism or Islam in terms of belief set than your denomination of Christianity. You can't judge other religions without judging other denominations. This is, of course, assuming you have a beef with other religions.
But churches are more like neighbourhood pubs than socratic forums of metaphysical philosophy. More tangible benefit seems to happen for the churchgoer over coffee after the service than what can be derived out of the sum of knowledge gleaned during the service.
If you're going create a church, keep the following in mind:
- Advertising faith-based healing will attract loads of old people on death's doorstep (Christian Science)
- Not enforcing many rules will give you a lot of new agers and agnostics in your group (The Quakers)
- Incorporating Powerpoint or other shiny-object electronics into your service will attract a younger crowd (United Church)
- Incorporating a lot of music and drama will do the same (United Church)
- Rituals during the service will turn a great number of people off, but will result in a set of hardcore regulars (Catholics, The Anglicans, perhaps Presbyterian)
- Same goes for Saturday meetings. (Seventh Day Adventists)
- A critical mass of followers in previous generations undoutably result in more money, better facilities and more influence overall (Anglicans, Presbyterians, Catholics, perhaps Lutheran)
- Not evangelising to gain a foothold in the area will almost certainly marginalize the group (The Quakers)
- Yet all the evangelizing in the world will not make up for seriously unpalatable, irrational beliefs (Jehovah's Witnesses)
So go ahead and start that church up today.
God has a plan for you, Gaius.